And please consider joining our delegation that will fly out to Washington, D.C. in February 2017 to submit oral comment. Our delegations that went in December 2013 and December 2015 were influential in the ACCJC currently being on the harshest status short of de-authorized. If you are interested please contact Wynd Kaufmyn

Please donate online to help fund this effort!Or you can send a check made out to
Save CCSF Coalition
1249 Hayes St.
San Francisco, CA 94117

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The Brief Story:The ACCJC gets its authority from the US Department of Education (DOE). Many of you are aware that, spurred by the CFT complaint filed in April 2013, the DOE issued a letter to the ACCJC identifying 15 federal regulations with which the ACCJC was out of compliance. They were given a year to come into compliance, essentially putting them on their own “show cause.”

The ACCJC will come before a NACIQI (National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) hearing this December. NACIQI will consider various documents including ACCJC’s report, a staff analysis report, and written third party comments. Oral third party comments will be allowed at the hearing. Then NACIQI will then make a recommendation to the DOE as to whether or not to reauthorize the ACCJC.

A More Detailed Story:Click here for a more detailed explanation of how the renewal process for an accrediting agency works and where the ACCJC is in this process.

Over a month before the accreditation bombshell dropped on City College, the SF Chronicle ran this headline on June 1, 2012: “S.F. City College can’t afford all its campuses: Trustees may have to close sites to save money, academic standing.” The article quoted the then-president of the college’s Board of Trustees, John Rizzo, saying, “I think we’re going to have to close some. They [the accreditation team] think we have too many campuses.” The Chronicle made no mention of the fact that it was highly unusual for an accreditation agency—charged with assuring educational quality—to advocate that a college “recoup its academic standing” through shutting down campuses, and later repeating in dozens of articles that the college was too “huge,” “a behemoth,” needing to “slim down” (read: serve fewer students on fewer campuses). All this suggests that a leading goal of the accreditation attack has been to downsize City College, justifying a takeover of irreplaceable public land by SF’s powerful real estate/finance industry. What’s hitting City College:

Moves to lease 33 Gough for 75 years to build luxury condos, directed by Sen. Feinstein’s huge CBRE real estate corporation. This process was started under complete secrecy during the state takeover, and continues today;

The disruptive closure of Civic Center Campus on a half-day’s notice in January 2015, evicting 1700 new immigrant students from their English classes, and clearing the way for real estate development (news alert: our students are not disposable!);

Mayor Lee’s railroading through a gentrification plan for the Balboa Reservoir, seeking to remake Ocean in the image of Whole Foods and Avalon. The mayor’s plan—though always hard to pin down—seems to be to build 500 units of mainly luxury condos, destroying many of the existing 1800 parking spaces essential to City College students and teachers, and not addressing the affordable housing crisis at all seriously. Furthermore, this 500-unit monstrosity would disrupt the neighborhood. The mayor’s planners continue to ignore City College as the centerpiece of this area, as well as the need to complete our Performing Arts Education Center, twice approved by SF voters. See http://sf-planning.org/balboa-reservoir

And watch out for possible moves on (1) the Downtown Campus, to benefit the huge 5M real estate development of Hearst Corporation, also owners of the SF Chronicle—the newspaper that is the lead attack dog against CCSF; (2) the Southeast Campus, which the PUC may want to convert into an office building, possibly displacing 400 City College students and teachers.

In 2013, the then-chair of the Democratic County Central Committee, Mary Jung, was hired on as chief lobbyist for the SF Realtors Association, til she was voted off in June 2016—what could be more blatant?

We demand that our Board of Trustees advocate vigorously for these principles:

Public land for the public good, forever!Our great- great- grandparents paid for and have built up Our City College since 1935. It rightfully belongs to our great- great- grandchildren, not to the special trustee or the real estate industry! (Doesn’t the 1% EVER have enough?)

Parking is NOT optional at a commuter school!We need all 1800 existing parking spots to re-build Our City College to full enrollmentcount them, it’s 1800, not 1000; plus we need parking for the Performing Arts Education Center, and 1:1 parking for new housing units. The idea that the tenth-richest city on the globe “just can’t afford” a parking structure would be laughable, if it weren’t drilled into our heads until we believe it. Parking is not in the plans of the real estate developers, whose priority is to cram hundreds of thousands more people into our small city—that is the real dynamic.

Complete the Performing Arts Education Center!Twice approved by SF voters, outrageously cancelled by a single man under the state takeover. (Around the country, state takeovers with their special trustees/emergency managers, are tied to the stripping out of public assets into private hands.)

100% truly affordable housing is possible!We want to see real affordable housing for teachers, staff, and long-time community residents, including students. Mixed-income construction should be mainly “moderate income” and “low income” units. We oppose even one more luxury condo in Our San Francisco, and we call for far less density than the mayor’s plan for the Reservoir! We seek full participation in real grassroots public planning by legitimate representatives of City College, the Communities United for Health and Justice, the Council of Community Housing Organizations, and all neighbors.

If SF, California and the feds would roll back all the corporate tax breaks and marginally legal tax evasion schemes, we could easily afford 100% affordable housing. Twitter’s epic tax break alone was worth tens of millions of dollars. Thanks to its tax evasion strategies, Apple—the most valuable corporation in the world–pays only a two percent corporate tax rate, far less than every single person reading this statement. Can SF find the money to rebuild City College enrollment, assure parking, and make a real advance on affordable housing? It’s all about political priorities—and what we ourselves will stand for.

This flyer was prepared by the Research Committee, based on material from the forthcoming Race, Poverty and the Environment special section on City College. For more information contact Allan Fisher: afisher800@gmail.com

End the gentrification of Our San Francisco and the destruction of Our City College!

The Save City College Coalition expresses its heartfelt solidarity with the Frisco Five and the struggle to end police terror in San Francisco, the Bay Area, and the US. These dedicated community members had been on a disciplined hunger strike since April 21 at the Mission Police Station, and were then hospitalized– Cristina Gutierrez, Ilyich Sato, Ike Pinkston, Selassie Blackwell, and Edwin Lindo. We support the demands of the hunger strike and the call to fire chief Greg Suhr. To have Suhr continue after the wave of recent killings of Alex Nieto, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, Mario Woods and Luis Gongora would be nothing less than impunity for murder.

The City College community feels these killings very personally:

Alex Nieto and Amilcar Perez-Lopez were City College students when they were murdered by the SFPD. In fact, Alex Nieto went to childcare at a City College day care center, a center that was closed down in one of the first actions of the hostile state takeover of City College supported by Ed Lee. City College Professor Ben Bac Sierra was a mentor and friend to Alex;

One of the hunger strikers, Equipto or Ilych Sato, was a City College student;

Mario Woods went to Balboa High School.

The young people being killed are from the same Black, Latin@ and marginalized communities being evicted from San Francisco by gentrification and police terror, and from City College through downsizing, student push-out policies, and the degradation of education and educators.

The Save City College Coalition of students, faculty, staff and community people is fighting hard against administration and state policies that seek:

The elimination of numerous Diversity Studies classes

The administration’s plan to cut 26% of classes from the schedule

Policies that push out students with academic challenges—the very students who need City College the most

Larger classes that undermine student equity efforts

Land grabs of public property such as the disruptive sudden closure of the Civic Center Tenderloin campus that used to serve new immigrants learning English

The increase in the proportion of “freeway flyer” part-time teachers without the time to work with students after class

We are fighting hard for a Free City College, so that people like Alex Nieto, Mario Woods, Amilcar Perez-Lopez and Luis Gongora can have BOOKS NOT BULLETS. We are fighting to reclaim both our collective Right to the City, and Education as a Human Right.

Support the Frisco Five Hunger Strike—tell Ed Lee to Fire Chief Suhr and make sweeping changes at the SFPD: mayoredwinlee@sfgov.org, (415) 554-6141

Stop Hemorrhaging Enrollment at City College:

End the Racist Payment Policy

In an email on January 26, 2016, Chancellor Susan Lamb announced
the suspension of the harsh payment policy on a trial basis, “based on feedback” (sustained student organizing). Read more at the end of this memo.

Activists with Save City College and the student Solidarity Committee (composed of Asian Student Union, Black Student Union, MECHA, P.E.A.C.E.–Pilipinos for Education, Arts, Culture and Empowerment) are writing to ask you to place an item on the Board of Trustees agenda ASAP: the current harsh payment policy that was initiated in October 2013, with the first wave of students being evicted from the college during enrollment for spring 2014.[1]Read more

Plug in to the organizing

Our struggle is far from over. We need to rebuild our City College to the open, affordable, accessible and diverse college our students deserve.

Mark your calendars for future GAs

General Assembly: March 16, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 160

General Assembly: April 27, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 270

The Colossal Deception

The colossal deception that has been unfolding since 2012 is unraveling. This deception has its origins in the 2012 decision by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges in California, the ACCJC, to place City College of San Francisco on “Show Cause,” the most severe sanction that can be imposed on an institution short of revoking its accreditation. This decision, and the one that followed a year later, to revoke CCSF’s accreditation a year out in 2014, led to a state takeover of the school, and the imposition of a Special Trustee With Extra Ordinary Powers, or STWEP. In plain English, the STWEP is a lone trustee with dictatorial powers, imposed on CCSF by the State Chancellor and the unelected Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges. The elected City College Board of Trustees was suspended and the STWEP was imposed, ostensibly, to save CCSF from loss of accreditation.To watch this grand deception unravel should bring satisfaction to no one, given the destruction left in its wake. No part of CCSF has been left unscathed in this spectacle; no part of it has emerged untarnished. The various corrupt components of the state takeover, and its ineptitude, are now clear and beyond dispute. Over 23,000 students, more than 25 percent of the2011-12 enrollment, have fallen away, including even higher percentages of the most at-risk students. Several departments, especially the Diversity and Social Justice departments, face a continuing and increasing threat to their existence.Some hailed this takeover as a positive step in “fixing” CCSF. This included Mayor Lee, who accepted, without question, the ACCJC’s claim that CCSF was a “failed institution.” The SF Chronicle was also a cheerleader for the now discredited ACCJC and its decision. We were told that, among other positive things, this was an opportunity to bring about changes that would improve the school, and the success of its students, in particular the most marginalized students, notably students of color, working class students, single parents, etc. The adherents of this viewpoint argued that those who were placed in control of the school would replace endemic poor management with good management, and would eliminate haphazard and politically motivated decision making with a process based on integrity and sound judgment. Under the watch of the new regime, we were supposed to see a rational, prudent use of the financial resources of the school in place of alleged financial mismanagement and reckless spending. We were promised an end to wasteful and irresponsible use of finances on such unacceptable things as the alleged unjustifiably high salaries of faculty and classified employees. Thus, the first act in this “responsible” financial policy was to unilaterally cut faculty and classified wages by nearly 12%, while going on to clandestinely increase the salaries of selected administrators to as high as 19%. The second act was to institute an unnecessarily aggressive and draconian payment policy that dropped 9124 students from all their classes over only four semesters, primarily those who are the most vulnerable. (After sustained protest by students and others, this payment policy has been suspended.)

All of this took place under the autocratic rule of the Special Trustee, shortly promoted to STWEP, and two interim chancellors, the first, incredibly destructive, the second, incredibly inept. The first interim Chancellor, Pamila Fisher, who frequently consulted by phone with Barbara Beno, proposed and pushed through a shell-shocked Board of Trustees, a college “reorganization plan” that included the firing of all of the deans, requiring those that wanted to retain their positions to formally reapply for them. It also involved a “departmental restructuring” that would have effectively destroyed the departmental structure as a whole. Fisher proposed eliminating all but seven of the 62 department chairs. This tremendously disruptive and destructive “reorganization plan” was announced at a time when CCSF had less than eight months to correct 14 “deficiencies” outlined by the ACCJC in their “Show Cause” report. This plan was certain to insure CCSF’s failure in its attempts to retain its accreditation, at least under the conditions set up by the ACCJC. But that didn’t stop the second interim chancellor, Thelma Scott-Skillman, from embracing this “reorganization plan,” and attempting to push it forward. As could be expected, the ACCJC claimed that we had not met the conditions to retain accreditation and that our accreditation would be revoked at the end of July 2014. The State Chancellor then decided that the suspension of the Board of Trustees was necessary to retain CCSF’s accreditation. This suspension was justified on the grounds that the Board was “dysfunctional.”

The results of this disastrous takeover now scream loudly and tragically for all to see, except, perhaps, those who remain steadfastly determined not to. Viewing all of this through the lens of political history, the whole thing is best understood as a grand coup, typical in its justifications and its promises, and complete with its dramatic, but predictable, failure. Neither the reign of an ordinary Special Trustee, nor that of a Special Trustee with Extraordinary Powers, was able to secure CCSF’s continued accreditation. Both utterly failed. More than this, they wrought havoc on our school. The misuse of district funds that took place under their watch has now come to light .

Even more damning is the fact that the STWEP was responsible for hiring the now departed chancellor whose use of district funds is in question; that chancellor in turn hired the now departed college president who is implicated along with him in this financial mischief. Nor was this the only administrator hired by the STWEP whose performance turned out to be far less than stellar.

We now have our Board of Trustees (presumably) back in power, and a Special Trustee who lingers, but whose only role is that of advisor (for which he receives an exorbitant salary). We have much work to do, however, to rebuild a CCSF that continues to remain open, affordable, accessible, and diverse. Our struggle for such a school is far from over. Please join in accomplishing this task.

At far left in the background is Barbara Beno talking to three women. In foreground: Students Lalo, JJ, Itzel, Win Mon, Julia, A.D., and Martin

37 of the 41 people who gave oral comments before NACIQI on December 16th offered reasons as to why the ACCJC should have its authorization as a regional accreditor revoked. The comments were heartfelt, data-driven and compelling. Three of the four who spoke in defense of the commission were seated ACCJC commissioners, two of whom did not identify themselves as such.

Here are some of the comments offered. (This document will be updated as more commenters send the webmaster their scripts.)

NACIQI’s decision to give the ACCJC six more months to come into compliance was, according to Inside Higher Ed, “the strongest rebukes of an accreditor that the panel typically makes, short of calling on the department to revoke its recognition entirely.”

It was clear from the deliberations that many of the NACIQI members felt that the ACCJC was incapable or unwilling to come into compliance. However, they were fearful of the vacuum that would result if ACCJC were de-listed. If they could have seen an easy path to a new accreditor to replace ACCJC, most likely they would have revoked ACCJC’s recognition.

Brice Harris has asked the Board of Governers to outline a plan by March 2016.